Dr Sprydion Lagaras, Univeristy of Illinois Urbana- Champaign's Gies College of Business.

"The Great Reshuffling and Entrepreneurship"

Wednesday 2 October 2025. 15:00-16:30 Room 253 The Wolfson Medical School Building

Abstract

The recent pandemic accelerated a paradigm shift in labor markets towards non traditional employment arrangements, with flexibility increasingly developing into a critical differentiating factor. We study the impact of the “Great Reshuffling” on transitions into entrepreneurship using administrative data from U.S. tax returns. We find a large increase in entry to entrepreneurship, particularly for women and women with dependents. We examine the role of childcare disruptions, remote work availability, and displacement, finding support in favor of the pandemic-driven increase in child care responsibilities as a primary factor. We show that transitions are persistent and lead to higher income for women. The pandemic shifted the composition of firms in the economy towards digital retail stores. Firms started by women survive more and have higher profitability. Overall, the results indicate that the pandemic shifted individuals’ preferences towards work.

 

Bio

Spyridon Lagaras is an assistant professor of finance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Gies College of Business. His research broadly lies in the intersection of corporate restructuring, entrepreneurship, and labor economics, with a particular focus on the role of human capital in motivating and shaping restructuring decisions by firms. His scholarly contributions have been extensively presented in academic and professional conferences and published in leading finance journals, including the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics. Lagaras has been the recipient of grants from the Kauffman Foundation and the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. He holds a B.Sc. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

First published: 17 September 2025

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